Resolution
by elisabethjj
Summary: Time is running out for Sarah and Jaime, and it's Jae Kim's last chance to choose which side he is on. A snippet in time that might be the end, or the beginning. Based on the 2008 series .


**Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters, place names or other aspects of Bionic Woman. I have made no money or profit from this fanfiction, which is intended only as a tribute to enjoying the show. **

**Resolution**

This is all wrong.

The Sarah Corvus that Jae knows- loves- is all full pouty lips and trouble in her eyes. He used to be hypnotised by her hard laughter wrapped up in sleek blonde femininity. Sarah: predatory, terrifying, and so alive.

That is not the woman lying before him on the bed: still and pale against a pillow-full of lank dark curls.

Jaime had told him it was bad, but he didn't – couldn't- imagine this. Then again, Jaime isn't looking so hot herself. He has noticed the dark circles under her eyes, the heavy movements, the shakes she is trying to hide. Most of all the fear behind that carefully constructed bionic gaze.

Still, Sarah has a head start, and she never was good at waiting for anyone else.

Once upon a time, Jae got involved with a groundbreaking project with military applications that he thought would prevent the senseless deaths of hundreds of soldiers. Ironic, really, that the same thing is now taking away the life of this woman, this soldier, who is everything in the world he has ever loved. Sarah would find it funny, he thinks. He can't enjoy the joke like she would.

Sarah has used the bionics to kill, racked up quite the body count, laughed while she did it. Now the bionics are killing her. Everyone she loved has betrayed her. He supposes it was only a matter of time before her own body got in on the action.

An almost imperceptible movement in the corner of his vision reminds him that not everyone who loves Sarah has betrayed her. (That's just _his_ guilt to carry.) He nearly doesn't recognise the quiet figure curled tightly in the chair by Sarah's pillow, watching with a cool eye.

"Jae Kim," she states, flatly. "You're here," her lip slightly curls, "at last".

"Becca," he remembers. She looks older than the child he has in his memory, but maybe the new ice-blond bob doesn't help. He wonders if she knows that it's not going to stop with Sarah, that she is losing both of them. Jae is fast realising _he_ is the only one in this room labouring under any illusions. It's that knowledge, he thinks, not the new hair, that lends Becca the years. Sadly, not even the worst case of a childhood sacrificed on the altar of Berkut's greatness.

Jaime is still hovering behind him and Becca shows no signs of leaving him to a private moment with his ex-lover. He wonders how three scarred girls become a family, but that's a train of thought he can't bear to follow. He chose his side and now he has to live with the consequences.

"You know they think you're as crazy as she is now," he remarks to Jaime without taking his eyes of Sarah.

"Maybe I am."

Her voice is starting to mimic that lazy honeyed mock that Sarah perfected so long ago.

"Maybe," Jae murmurs. "Maybe she never was, either."

"Oh, c'mon Jae," Jaime taunts him, "you never believed that, did you? When she told you about being hacked? It's far easier to think she was an unstable sociopath."

He strokes a gentle thumb across one of Sarah's pale cheeks, thinks how she was _his_ unstable sociopath.

"What can I do?" he asks.

It's all business again. Becca slides a laptop off the bedside table and begins opening screens of blueprints and what look like Berkut staff profiles. Jaime lays it on him straight.

"We're all out of options."

"I figured. Didn't think you'd break cover after two years on the run so we could have tea."

"Or so you could say goodbye?" she asks, cruelly.

"You don't owe me that much," he acknowledges, but she doesn't look ashamed. "What do you want me to do?"

"We need into Berkut."

"In?" He's not sure he heard her right. It sounded like she wants to break in to the high security head quarters of the para-military organisation she's been running from since they tried to have her and her family killed.

"Last resort," she confirms, smiling slightly. "We're taking the place under siege: the operating theatre," she gazes at him meaningfully, "the _surgeon_…"

Ah. It makes sense, now. No less impossible, but at least a well reasoned suicidal gesture.

"Are you crazy?" he asks and watches her smirk.

"I think we've already covered that."

He thinks for a moment.

"They'll know it was me," he comments, almost idly.

Jaime snorts rudely.

"Well, yes, Jae. We'll be lucky if it takes them 24 hours to find out you were here. That's why we're doing this tonight."

There's a whole host of problems with what she's saying, but, selfishly, one sticks out in his mind.

"You wouldn't have told me that if you were planning on giving me a choice." It's a little late to realise he is the first Berkut hostage in Jaime Sommers' final battle.

She doesn't flinch at the implied accusation.

"That's correct." She doesn't sound like she's threatening his life, but she is and this is not the naïve, uncomplicated girl he taught basic combat to, once upon a history.

"If I say no…" Perversely, he wants to hear her say it.

"Sarah would understand," Jaime says, looking softly for a moment at the woman in the bed.

"Why I said no?"

"Why I had to kill you."

Jonas would be proud.

"Sarah couldn't do it. She let me go three times," he observes, acidly.

"Good point," and now the mocking lilt is back, "and yet you managed to put a bullet in _her_ brain easily enough, so maybe it's _you_ who'll understand." She tilts her head as Jae looks away. "Anyway, this is academic. You decided to help as soon as you got my message. It's why you came. You still love her."

"Yes," he whispers. To all of the above.

"Well, it's time you got off the fucking fence then, Jae."

"I'm here, aren't I?"

She's already stalked out of the room in a blur of leather and superiority.

Becca stands suddenly, having observed the exchange in silence.

"Sarah never stopped loving you, either," she tells him.

Suddenly he's blinking back tears he didn't know he had left for the woman he has felt like such an idiot for being in love with, but needed so desperately. He doesn't think he can bear to lose her again. Not like this.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," the young girl pauses on her way to the door, "but Jaime's right, though." Jae looks at her, really looks at her, maybe for the first time. Becca shrugs as she says, "Sarah _would_ understand."

She follows her big sister and leaves Jae alone with his dying lover and a deep-seated sadness at how the world can have done this to the Sommers girls.

He waits for Sarah to wake up. He wants to tell her he loves her one last time before they all get themselves killed tonight.

She's always liked to hear him say that he loves her.

_End_

_Please review!_


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